


Kodak Moments from the Zombie Apocalypse

by EmeraldAshes



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Angst and Humor, But like a LOT of other people die, Connor Lives, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Murphy Sibling Bonding, Shipping If You Squint, The Insanely Cool Jared Kleinman with a CROSSBOW, Zombie Apocalypse, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-10
Updated: 2017-12-10
Packaged: 2019-02-12 19:33:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12966804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmeraldAshes/pseuds/EmeraldAshes
Summary: It’s the end of the world, and Jared is still heckling Evan’s (nonexistent) sex life.





	Kodak Moments from the Zombie Apocalypse

**Author's Note:**

> This started as like three jokes. I have absolutely no idea what happened...

There was a knock at the door. A loud, steady knock. Evan wasn’t expecting anyone, so he crept forward, avoiding the glass sides that meant that the person outside could see you approaching, and peered through the peep hole. The Hansens’ neighborhood was what realtors liked to call “up-and-coming,” which meant that sometimes people got mugged, and there had been a _lot_ of shouting earlier.

Relieved that the knocker wasn’t a gangster or a traveling salesman, Evan opened the door a few inches. “J-Jared?”

Jared shoved the door open, pushing past a sputtering Evan. “Jesus Christ, Evan. I thought you were dead, you dick.”

“Wh-what?”

“Why weren’t you answering your phone?”

“I, um, put it on silent. I was h-having a quiet day.”

“You were having a quiet day.” Jared stared at him, hand tightening on his…

“Um, why are you carrying a crossbow?”

“Holy shit”—Jared laughed—“You have no idea what’s going on, do you?”

“I usually don’t, no. Sorry,” Evan muttered.

“You haven’t been watching the news? Going on social media? Looking out the fucking window?”

“Jared, what’s happening?”

Jared raised his crossbow in the air. “Oh, just the actual goddamned zombie apocalypse.”

 

* * *

 

Zoe burst into Connor’s room, which was just fucking rude.

“I could have been jerking off.”

She slammed the door behind her, locking it. “Mom’s a zombie.”

Connor snorted. “What else is new?”

“No, I mean, she’s eating dad. She’s _eating_ him.”

“Oh,” Connor said softly.

“Oh God,” Zoe mumbled, sinking onto his bed, which would usually bother him, and still kind of did, but was so much less important than everything else. “What the hell do we do?”

“I don’t know.”

“The lock’s not gonna hold up, not for long, not once she comes up,” Zoe said. “Okay, okay. I’m gonna, um, check the news. Maybe they know something or have advice or…No, never mind, they’re being eaten by zombies. The scrolly thing at the bottom says to go for the heads? But it’s not like we have actual freaking weapons.”

Connor stood, starting to load up his backpack with all the food and water bottles he’d squirreled away for those days when he didn’t want to leave his room. After a moment of hesitation, he also shoved in his tin of razor blades and the rest of his pot stash. He glanced at Zoe’s phone as he leaned over her to grab his hoodie. “You’re on Twitter right now.”

Zoe’s thumbs quickly typed something. “Shut up.”

Connor glared at her. “I’m packing for us to flee the house, but no, never mind, we should tweet about it first. Good thinking.”

“Fuck you. I’m trying to figure out if anyone knows anything, like if they’re sending in the army or whatever.”

“Are they?”

“No. I don’t think so. But, um, some people are planning to meet up, to fortify the”—a body slammed against the door, and Zoe shivered—“Jesus. We need to go, Connor.”

“Go where?” Connor said, slinging the backpack over his shoulder.

Zoe opened Connor’s window. “School.”

 

* * *

 

Alana stepped up onto the little round seat, then climbed on to the cafeteria table, pasting on a tight smile. She clapped her hands. “Hello everyone. I’m very glad that you saw my social media posts or received my group text. I…I wasn’t sure anyone would be able to come.”

She swept her eyes over the group. There weren’t as many of her classmates as she had hoped for, and truthfully, she was surprised to see so few adults. Alana knew she was lucky. Her father and mother were okay, though her grandmother had been in bed with a broken hip when the hospital had been overrun.

“We need to determine what we have and what we need. Food, water, blankets, weapons. I need to know what you can do, as well. Any skills.”

Evan Hansen stood up, hands fidgeting, eyes on the ground. “F-first aid. My, my m-m-mom is a nurse. Was a nurse. S-sorry.”

Jared clapped him on the back. “I’m good with computers, assuming any of them are still running. Also, I have a small armory in my backpack. My uncle was really into guns. Not in a hunting way, just in a ‘I wanna be Rambo’ way. I can shoot them, too.”

“I can cook,” Heather McNamara said, her blonde ponytail ragged, “if it helps.”

“Jeremy and I are pretty solid at tactics,” Michael called out.

Jeremy groaned. “Yeah, in _videogames._ ”

“I know how to make a bomb,” J.D. volunteered. “Several types, actually.”

Zoe said, “If anyone needs to talk, I’m here. People tell me I’m a good listener.”

Jenna Rolan smiled. “She’s a _super_ good listener.”

More students stood up, offering each skill half-heartedly, like they knew it wouldn’t be enough. Nothing had been enough, for most of the people they knew. Alana’s smile dropped. “I’m very sorry this happened, and I know that many of us are grieving. But I think we might be okay. I think things will get better.”

 

* * *

 

Jared rustled through the kitchen’s cabinets. The people who had lived here had a lot of soup. Stocking up on sales and stuff, probably. Clipping coupons. That was the sort of thing his dad had liked to do. Now Jared was the one doing the grocery shopping, by looting an abandoned house not too far from the school. No sense in surviving the zombies only to starve.

Jared wondered if the zombies were smart enough to feel hunger, certain they were starving even when their stomachs had burst open from too much meat. He wondered if there was any part of the person still in there. He…tried to focus on how terrible his partner-in-looting’s haircut was. “So, why are _you_ here?”

“I offered,” Connor said.

Jared laughed. “Yeah, but why?”

Connor glared at him, one stuffed backpack on his back while a second one, half-stuffed, hugged his chest. “Maybe I want to fucking help? But that’s insane, right? Crazy Connor helping people? Nah, probably wants to go team up with the zombies.”

“Relax. I just mean that you seemed kinda gung-ho about it. Come on, there’s got to be a reason. Hero complex? Dramatic atonement for a past wrong? Trying to impress a girl?”—Jared waggled his eyebrows—“Trying to impress a _guy_?”

Connor glared at him. “Cabin fever.”

“You were stir crazy enough that you would rather risk being eaten by zombies than hang out in our giant-ass school?”

Connor shrugged. “It’s pretty fucking crowded lately.”

Jared rolled his eyes. “Dude, that answer is such a cock block.”

“Hell is other peop…Fuck.”

“What’s up?”

Connor hefted his ax. “What do you think?”

 

* * *

 

“This is g-going to hurt. Sorry,” Evan said as he poured antiseptic over the sliced arm—not a lot, he couldn’t be wasteful, but enough to be safe.

Connor winced a little at the pain, then seemed to relax into it. His eyes closed.

Evan set down the bottle. “I should…I…Th-thank you. Jared said you saved his life. Well, he didn’t use the word ‘life,’ but you know.”

Connor stared at the fluorescent light above and let it blind him. “Jared’s an idiot.”

Evan urged him to sit up on the nurse’s office bed, beginning to wrap the wound on his arm. “Yeah, he is, but he’s f-family. Not like blood-relation family, but family friends family, which is pretty much family especially when everyone else is dead, and…I’m rambling. Sorry.”

Connor sighed, his tone irritated. “You talk at all your patients like this?”

“Just you…and Alana, I guess. N-not all of them saved my only friend.” Evan wound the bandage tightly, pinning it in place with a bobby pin and wishing that he was actually good at this and not just the only person who knew anything.

“Hansen,” Connor said as he stood, stretching out his long legs.

“Y-yeah?”

He gestured toward his bandaged arm. “Thanks.”

 

* * *

 

 

Jared laughed because wow, Evan was still Evan even during the freaking apocalypse. “Playing the long game, eh?”

“Jared, will you please stop t-talking?” Evan muttered.

Jared raised his hands, palms out. “Hey, no, it’s a solid strategy. First you win over the big brother, then swoop in for the girl. It’s a foolproof plan, y’know, assuming Connor is sane, which he’s not.”

“Jared, can you just go?”

“Oh, come on. I have literally nothing to do right now.”

Evan gestured toward the medical stuff he was inventorying—stuff that Jared had brought back through a horde of zombies, not that he was bragging or anything. “I’m w-working.”

“Okay, now you sound like your mom.” It had been an automatic comparison. Jared paled. “Wait, shit.”

Evan glared at him. “Just go!”

 

* * *

 

Give up. Stop being afraid. Just disappear. No one will miss you.

(How could they? Everyone is dead.)

Alana understood the temptation to end things. She did. She’d been having thoughts even before the dead started walking, when her life was unquestionably perfect. Recently, the thoughts had gotten louder.

When her father died during a supplies run, she let herself cry for one day, but only one day. Stillness is death—if not physically, then mentally. After that, Alana put her entire being into running the school. She paced the halls and spoke with everyone she passed. She checked that each person with a job had supplies. She created lists and plans and meeting itineraries.

Alana was certain that she could create some small pocket of order and safety.

Then stubborn, vicious, vivacious Heather Chandler drank bleach. Then Kurt and Ram shot each other in the men’s locker room. Then Martha Dunstock snuck out the back door in the middle of the night and let herself be torn apart by the dead. The sound of Martha’s screams and the scent of her blood attracted thousands of zombies to the school.

 

* * *

 

“It’s…it’s just the keening noises, you know?” Evan said, twisting the bottom of his shirt. “It’s st-starting to get to me.”

Zoe touched his shoulder. It felt warm. “I get it.”

“I, I just…it was easier to pretend that this wasn’t wh-what it is before they started gathering.”

Zoe smiled, subtle and perfect and real. “Yeah, it’s…it’s kind of incomprehensible. Easier to pretend it’s just a weird lock-in dance or something.”

“What was that th-thing that some of the art kids did? Last year? For ch-charity? Like, they were in the school for 24 hours working on stuff.”

“Design-a-thon?”

Evan nodded, quick and shaky. “Y-yeah!”

“Connor did that,” she mumbled.

“H-he did? It didn’t seem like something he would, um…”

“My mom made him”—Zoe’s eyes fell to the floor, and her voice softened—“I think he liked it, though. He was in a good mood for like a week after. Or Connor’s version of a good mood.”

“Um, are you okay?”

Zoe’s eyes widened, and they seemed a little shinier than normal. “Me?”

“I, I just…with the s-s-s…what happened with Heather and Ram and—”

Then an explosion rocked the floor.

 

* * *

 

Zoe had talked to J.D. about his issues adjusting to the end of the world, had hugged him after Heather Chandler’s suicide, had tried to help when he’d told her how worried he felt about Veronica. Now he was on the loudspeaker, confessing to murders staged as suicides and viciously taunting his ex-girlfriend. Now he had blown up the fucking gymnasium and attracted every zombie in a ten-mile radius. Now Zoe and Evan—who was nice, yeah, but so _fragile_ sometimes—were stuck in the old nurse’s office while zombies wandered the halls.

Zoe kicked the little bed in the corner. “Asshole!”

“S-sorry.”

“Not you. Not…” A sob finally ripped out of her. “We’re all gonna die here.”

Evan shuffled forward, nervous, lightly touching her shoulder. “W-we’re not g-gonna…”

“Don’t lie, okay? I…I try to be positive. Smiley Zoey saying everything’s gonna be just hunky fucking doory, but it isn’t. It’s been months. Nobody’s coming. And now we don’t even have the school.”

Evan hugged her. “I know. I’m…I’m sorry.”

Zoe hugged him back. “I miss, like, _everything_.”

“Me too,” he mumbled. “And, and maybe things aren’t gonna get better. Maybe we’re all gonna die.”

Zoe buried her face in his shoulder, miserable and so, so scared. She didn’t know where Connor was, or Jenna, or even stupid Veronica with her bastard boyfriend. Dead, maybe. Maybe just more moaning bodies clawing at the door.

Evan squeezed her against his chest, and it almost reminded her of her father’s hugs when she was a little girl. “B-but I’m…I’m glad that I g-got to know you. I’m g-glad that we became, became friends.”

Zoe pulled back a little to look at him, forcing a tiny smile. She opened her mouth to thank him, and he kissed her. She pulled back, the anger that had been crawling under her skin earlier now pouring out. “What the hell?”

Evan’s voice jumped an octave and sped up. “S-sorry! I just, it seemed like we were sharing a moment.”

“Not that kind of moment,” Zoe snapped.

Evan began to tremble, probably trying to come up with some way to make things right while people were _dying_ outside, and for a single moment she hated him.

A knock-knock drew Zoe’s attention to the window, where Jared grinned at them. “The cavalry is here, bitches!”

Connor, a few steps behind him, rolled his eyes and waved at them through the glass before axing a zombie attracted by Jared’s shout.

“Connor threw a printer at a zombie,” Jared informed them as Evan stumbled out the window.

“That’s, um…cool.”

“His upper body strength is quite impressive,” Alana agreed. Her eyes were red, and there was a quiver to her voice. Later that night, when they had holed up in a two-story house a few miles away, Zoe would ask Alana what was wrong. Aside from, you know, everything.

 

* * *

 

“Oh my God,” Jared cackled.

“Please shut up,” Evan muttered because, seriously, the others were _one_ room over. They could probably hear.

“You totally just tried the ‘You don’t wanna die a virgin, do you?’ technique on Zoe Murphy.”

Evan turned bright red, which made Jared laugh harder. “I, I didn’t! That wasn’t what I meant. Oh my God, do you think she thinks that’s what I meant?”

Jared slapped his shoulder. “Evan, buddy…Yes.”

Evan groaned.

 

* * *

 

Evan had never been a heavy sleeper, and he had been completely on edge, ready to run, for months now. He woke up, heartbeat already quickening. In another life, Dr. Sherman had told him to count to ten when he got panicky, to focus on the numbers instead of whatever was in his head. Now, he counted his living friends. One. Two. Three…Where was Connor?

Evan found him upstairs, in a small bedroom where moonlight shone through the windows. Connor looked up at him. He didn’t bother to hide the razor in his hand or the cuts on his left arm. He had that distrustful, stray cat look in his eyes for the first time in a while.

Evan closed the door behind him “Hey.”

 He sat beside his friend on the floor, their backs resting against the dresser drawers beneath the bed. Glow-in-the-dark stars dotted the ceiling; this had been a kid’s room once.

A sweep of Connor’s hair hung in front of his face. “You’re not gonna say anything?”

Evan shrugged. “Does it…help?”

“Yeah,” Connor murmured, wiping his razor clean on the bedspread.

Evan bumped his shoulder against Connor’s. “Good.”

“Wanna hear something fucked up?”

Evan had cleaved in his old therapist’s rotting face yesterday. “It would have to be pretty bad to bother me. Not saying you can’t, um, do it, but…”

Connor shook his head, a tight smirk on his face. “I’m happy about all this.”

Evan hummed, waiting for the details. Connor liked his shocking moments, liked showing off what a monster he was. But Evan had seen real monsters, and Connor was just human.

“I’m depressed, angry, borderline suicidal, and for once that’s completely fucking normal. Of course I hate my life. My parents are dead. I’m constantly in danger. The whole world is overrun by the living dead. But I felt like this before, and now…shit, I think I’m actually enjoying myself a lot more.”

“The therapy of crushing a Z’s head with a shovel,” Evan mumbled.

Connor roughly bumped Evan’s shoulder. “Dick. But yeah, kind of? Zoe’s my sister again. I have…friends might be a stretch, but people who like me enough to save my ass from zombies. And if I do get infected, someone might actually give a shit when I put a bullet through my brain.”

Evan rested his head against Connor’s shoulder. “Friends isn’t a stretch, and, and I g-get what you mean? Like, um, ‘Why’s Evan so stressed?’ Zombies. ‘Why does Evan cry himself to sleep sometimes?’ Zombies. ‘Why doesn’t Evan have any college plans?’”

“Zombies,” Connor interjected, laughing.

Evan grinned. “Right? And it kind of works for the p-positive questions, too. Like, ‘Why does Evan have friends now?’ or ‘Why is he so good at shooting a gun?’”

“Getting a big head there, Hansen”—Connor trailed his fingertips across the wounds on his arms and the older scars surrounding them—“It helps to have something to fight that’s outside my head.”

Evan hummed, eyes on Connor’s arms. The fresh cuts weren’t actively bleeding, but they still looked sensitive. “L-let me wrap you up?”

Connor stood, grabbing Evan’s hand to drag him to his feet. “Never say it like that around Jared.”

 

* * *

 

“Look, dude, we all know you’re gay lovers.”

Evan sighed. He had tried really, really hard to not be left alone with Jared while looting. “We aren’t.”

Jared snorted. “You disappear in the middle of the night. Together.”

Evan found a half-full bottle of Tylenol. “We’re bonding.”

“Right,” Jared chirped, “with your dicks out.”

“You are s-such a pervert.”

“You’re the one in some sort of messed-up love triangle with a brother and a sister. Does it count as a triangle if two of the sides aren’t connected? Like, does that make it more of a love arrow?”

Evan opened the bathroom closet, pulling out towels and other potential supplies. “Can we please stop talking about my nonexistent sex life?”

As a low keening noise entered their hearing—probably a zombie stuck in one of the bedrooms—Jared loaded a bolt in his crossbow. “Dude, your sex life might _actually_ be the funniest thing on the planet right now.”

**Author's Note:**

> I might add more omakes to this later, so feel free to throw out suggestions.


End file.
